Rome: As searches continued for two people who were reportedly missing, the Italian coast guard on Saturday discovered one person dead following a migrant shipwreck off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, according to Ansa news agency.
Ansa reported that 43 people were saved by the coast guard after the accident, which occurred about 23 miles southwest of Lampedusa, and that they also found the body of what appeared to be a minor.
Authorities were informed by survivors that a total of 46 people had set out on the journey. Strong winds are complicating the situation around the island, and more than 2,000 people have arrived in Lampedusa in the last few days after being saved at sea by Italian patrol boats and NGO organisations.
Authorities have not yet been able to free a group of 20 migrants who are stranded on the rocks where their boat crashed on Friday night due to rough seas, according to local media.
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On Saturday, the NGO Open Arms shared a video of their rescue boat being blown by the wind as it made its way to the port of Brindisi in southern Italy with 199 migrants on board on the social media platform X.
The Italian government's policy of assigning landing ports far from the rescue areas, Open Arms complained, "forces them to face prohibitive marine weather conditions after days adrift at sea."
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According to data from the interior ministry, approximately 92,000 migrants have arrived in Italy by sea so far this year, compared to 42,600 during the same period in 2022.
